Sea Shepherd deliberately sank its own high-tech protest boat after a January collision with a Japanese whaling ship to gain sympathy, the former skipper said yesterday in a public spat with the conservation group’s founder.
New Zealander Peter Bethune said the futuristic trimaran Ady Gil was salvagable after the crash, but that he was ordered by Sea Shepherd head Paul Watson to scuttle it. Watson denied the claim, saying the decision was Bethune’s.
The exchange has exposed a bitter falling out between Bethune, who shot to international prominence because of the high-seas drama, and Watson, the figurehead of Sea Shepherd’s campaign against Japan’s Antarctic whaling program.
The campaign has drawn high-profile donor support in the US and elsewhere and spawned the popular Animal Planet series Whale Wars.
Bethune was at the helm of the Sea Shepherd boat when its bow was shorn off by Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru 2 in waters off the frozen continent in January. Bethune later boarded the whaler to confront the ship’s captain over the collision and was detained by the crew.
Bethune was arrested and spent five months in a Japanese jail while being tried on trespassing, assault and other charges. He was convicted and received a suspended prison sentence in July, then deported.
He said the Ady Gil was salvageable after the collision, but that Watson ordered it to be sunk. Bethune said he and two other activists went aboard the Ady Gil and opened compartments and hatches to let in water, the stuff.co.nz news Web site reported.
Bethune told New Zealand’s National Radio he believed Watson wanted the sinking to “garner sympathy with the public and to create better TV.”
“Paul Watson was my admiral. He gave me an order and I carried it out,” Bethune said. “I was ashamed of it at the time and I’m ashamed of it now.”
“It was all done in secret. I was ordered not to tell any of the crew, not my family and especially not Ady Gil, the owner of the boat,” Bethune said, referring to the US businessman who funded the vessel.
Watson, a Canadian, said the scuttling of the Ady Gil was Bethune’s decision.
“Pete is on camera saying ‘yes, I guess we’re going to have to let it go,’ so it was his decision and actually wasn’t mine,” Watson told National Radio.
The Ady Gil sank two days after the collision with the Japanese ship. At the time, Sea Shepherd said the Ady Gil was being towed by another of its vessels, the Bob Barker — funded by the former US talk show host — when the line snapped and the Ady Gil began taking on water. Fuel and other potential environmental pollutants had been removed from the boat.
The Ady Gil— a sleek, wave-piercing trimaran that resembled a spider-like stealth bomber — set the speed record for a power boat circumnavigating the globe last year, when it was called Earthrace. It took 60 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes and ran on biofuel.
Whale conservation groups yesterday declined to comment on the row.
A former conservation minister for New Zealand, which has strongly opposed Japan’s whaling in Antarctic waters, said that Watson’s credibility and Sea Shepherd’s program “have been compromised by this information.”
“It will weaken his position and the campaign against Japanese whaling in the southern ocean,” former New Zealand conservation minister Chris Carter said, as well as “the validity of Paul Watson’s arguments about the conservation of species.”
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the